When I was making the seagull skeleton prop recently, a google image search took me to sakurasnow’s drawing of a seagull skull, and then more generally to her lovely blog. In particular I love her beautiful curiosity cabinet designs. And I think there are some new ones on the way! Occasionally they are available in her Etsy shop, and she is also working with them on fabric.
At the moment I’m entranced with drawing on my iPhone, mostly playing with the Brushes and Paintbook apps. My full set of iPhone drawings is here.
With Brushes I’m presently evolving some strange creatures in a strange environment. Above you can see the Hedgehogerus surprised, the Hedgehogerus nest and fairy, the two-toed Chubbachubb, and the double-pouched Schweep.
With Paintbook I’ve been making some very simple two-tone faces of (mostly) imaginary people. Here are a few favourites:
It seems as if there is an exciting new field opening up as people experiment with what can be achieved on such a small screen using just your finger. David Hockney has already had an exhibition of his iPhone drawings, and The New Yorker recently drew attention to the phenomenon by featuring an iPhone drawing by Portuguese artist Jorge Columbo as it’s cover illustration. But you get a better feel for the range, quality and some sense of developing community among artists using iPhone apps, at Flickr, for instance in the Brushes gallery.
On FriendFeed today Amy today pointed to a British House of Commons debate about trying to save traditional crafts. I rather fear it is a lost cause. The upsurge in crafting and making in the last few years driven by the web is great in many respects, but I suspect probably can do little to help the traditional crafting skills of the sort referred to in the debate, as economies of scale are lined up against them.
But the article did remind me of some lovely images of traditional craftsmen by printmaker Stanley Anderson. Here are three:
Coppicing:
Chairmaking:
Basket weaving:
These are from Country Bazaar, a 1970’s book about country crafts. (I’m not sure about copyright here – please let me know if it is an issue). You can find a few more if you google, for instance The Violin Maker, but wouldn’t it be cool if it were possible to see the whole series?
I’m really happy – Yiying Lu sent me one of her cool Fail Whale cards! Here it is with my little sculpture. Thanks so much Yiying :)
I get a lot of interest in my photos of Mr. Squiggle and friends, so I thought people might like to see the squiggle that Mr. Squiggle (aka Norman Hetherington) drew for me personally at the Puppet Summit in Melbourne in 2002. I guess over the years he has drawn them for many people!
Some of the things you can do on the iPhone just seem like magic to me. This image is drawn on the iPhone screen with my finger, using the Brushes app. It’s taking me a while to get some finesse, but the Brushes Gallery pool at Flickr is ample proof that it is possible.
(btw, Ocarina has been the most jaw-droppingly magic app for me so far.)
Chris Sickels at Red Nose Studio makes real figures and scenarios that are then photographed to produce cool 3D illustrations for papers, magazines and books. The 3D illustration above is his cover for Cory Doctorow’s story The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away. Before seeing this I had thought of 3D illustration as more a virtual rendering process. In this real form it is closely, and interestingly, allied to my work making puppets and props. I recently had a picture of my 3D fail whale published as an illustration in the Japanese computer magazine WEB+DB PRESS. I suppose that is fairly close – the only difference is in your intention when you start making an object?
(via @LolaLulu)
Liz Wong, painter and a freelance illustrator, is making a graphic novel of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It should be fun to see how it progresses. I looked around to see if there have been other Austen graphic novels, and yes there are. Anne Timmons’ Northanger Abbey is included in Gothic Classics: Graphic Classics Volume 14. Here is a sample drawing. And a manga style version of P&P, illustrated by Tintin Pantoja is due to be published in about September 2007. If you take the Sequential Art link on her site you can see her version of the first proposal.
In addition to the decisions on how to break up the page, what to zero in on, how to convey action, and what interpretations are being made through image rather than word, I was interested – but not surprised! – to see the influence of Andrew Davies’ 1996 adaptation of P&P.
I’m taken with this lovely leaf logo which belongs to a new green blog Earth2Tech (a new part of the GigaOm blog network) which will focus on the business side of green and clean technology.
And check out the cool Power of Wind ad produced by Nordpol+ Hamburg for EPURON, a renewable energy company based in Germany.
(via Laughing Squid)
